Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1887-10-19

Have not see her to-day" Train
after train came along. 1t seemed to
him that every mans darling was COM
ing home except his. 1t was seven
o'clock before he knew it. The sun
had gone down behind Piermont and
the river was bloody with color. His
growing impulse was to take down
train and fly after her. His reason
held up the city. with its million
people, and reminded him heartlessly
of the needle in a haystack.
He tried to laugh at his fears; called
himself fool. But no sooner had he
done so than up rose with terrible dis
tinctness the great, sweltering city,
with its myriad dangers, its colliding
life and death and the possibility OF his
darling having fallen into some snare
or met with some accident He in
vented thousand absurd reasons to ac-
count for her absence and silence, and
they only added to his misery by their
ingenious shallowness.
At nine o'clock q new and terrible
idea was springing up in his mind in
spite Of every effort to keep 1t down. IL
was this: "She will never come back. "
He heard Boobies crying as he APP
preached the cottage. He thought
there was a strange, desolate pathos in
it he had never heard before. He felt
cold sense of something down in his
soul. as If relentless iron was working
its way into his consciousness.
He walked the floor with his teeth set
as though to keep the phantoms of his
imagination back.
And so the long night passed with no
wife, and only the sobs of the child,
waking at intervals and calling for
ma"
As soon as it was light Lofty went
over and brought Mrs. Chamberlain, a
neighbor. She looked at Binninger
with concern. His whole face had
changed.
She tried to cheer him with wom-
ans fnesse and duplicity.
what boy you are" she said;
Lou has been detained by somebody
and she has neglected to wire you be-
cause she expected to come back. You
are borrowing trouble. It's annoying,
but certainly not serious. I've done it
myself. You will 60 down and make
some inquiries, and I'll stay here till she
comes, and then telegraph YOU" This
is the slap on the back Of the hearty
man when the bell of doom Is tolling in
your SOUL
The aerolite had fallen.
The next day passed hopelessly and
helplessly.
Lou never came back to the cottage.
She was lying there on a slab in the
morgue, waiting to be identified.
Love was searching the earth for her,
and made sure to come at last, when
all other hope gave out, to this CHASTITY
finale.
Lou had hurried across-town from
her dressmaker to see a maid who had
advertised. She had been compelled.
on account Of a street disturbance, to
get out of tho vehicle and walk. In
orty-second street at one o'clock she
fell under the rays of the sun and was
carried into the hallway of a tenement
house. Ten minutes later mob surged
through the street, chased by the pc.
lice. Some of the vicious characters
who always swarm on such occasions
took refuge in this house. One woman
pulled the dress half off the insensible
lady and then wrapped her own dirty
and ragged shawl about her. Rough
men fought over her body. She was
mistaken afterwards for one of the
same class, and an ambulance carried
her to the hospital, where she died
while Binninger was waiting for the
8:31 train.
I went up to the funeral. I didn't
know Binninger. He looked 80 tired
and frightened.
But 1 shall never forget the strange
odor of the lilacs. / stood there and
saw them carry out the coffin and
heard Boobies somewhere upstairs sob,
bling and calling.-"Nym Crinkle," ia
NJ y World.